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Reminisces of a Mineral Dealer & Collector by Sam Nasser I was speaking with Dr. Ray Grant at his home the other day and we got on the subject of our beginnings in the world of geology. I recalled my first experience as a dealer. My uncle had a farm in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in the heart of Anthracite coal country. At that time, there were literally mountains of coal mine waste everywhere. The fossils that my cousins and I found in these heaps of slate were "magical". The fern fossils were sometimes preserved in red ochre hematite, which, to a 6 or 7 year old boy seemed like dragon teeth. We would take these different Pennsylvanian plant fossils out to the roadside and sell them along with sweet corn and tomatoes. We did this to get a few quarters for a couple of boxes of .22 bullets so we could go to the town dump and shoot rats. So began my endeavors in the sales of rocks. My family moved to Arizona in 1959. I found a few arrowheads and mano/matates around the farms near Glendale with the help of my folks' neighbors, who did farming in this area. It was when I attended Glendale Community College that I met Wayne Thompson. I was soon introduced to his friend, Les Presmyk. When Wayne took me to Les' folks house, I was more impressed with the indoor swimming pool with a trapeze than with meeting Les. This soon changed as we all started to go out field collecting. Les went on to the U of A to obtain his engineering degree, and the rest of us attended Geology classes at Glendale Community College. During this time my lifelong friendships with Wayne and Les were formed. J.R. "Bob" Thompson replaced our first year instructor, Ben Benham, who taught at Phoenix College for many more years. Bob Thompson's first address to our class of 9 or 10 students, was," I heard that you all think that you are a bunch of hotshots". Well, we (Continued on page 6)
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